As long as there are people willing to listen to someone who can make them laugh, standup will be around forever - David Kau

Renowned local comedian David Kau has become synonymous with many firsts in South Africa.

The 46-year-old performer, filmmaker and entrepreneur will always be remembered as the only black person on stage at the Smirnoff Comedy Festival in 1998, when South Africa was still developing as a democracy.

Chatting to Nokukhanya Mntambo, Kau says the only reason there were black people in the audience as well, is because he gave complimentary tickets to friends staying in his university residence.

Studying drama at the University of Cape Town at the time, Kau had no intention of going into comedy.

His festival performance came about because he was required to perform a one-man show in order to graduate.

"I ended up writing 'The Rainbow Nation Tour'... where I impersonated people including Nelson Mandela."

"I had no clue what I was doing... then someone saw me perform and booked me for a standup comedy show."

David Kau, Comedian

At the time, Kau even registered for a second degree after graduating, but had to stop attending lectures as he started getting booked for gigs.

The seasoned performer is now known across the country not only for his live performances but for films including Taxi Ride and TV shows like the Pure Monate.

He says he's certainly lost money through his career decisions, for instance giving a leg up to aspirant comedians, but doesn't regret any of it.

"If I thought you were funny I'd take you from nowhere and turn you into another name in the industry... I overdid it, I gave away a large percentage of my money or at least used it to help other artists or made movies or put up shows that were losing money...

"But I had good times; you can't write me out of history."

"Standup comedy is just you with a microphone standing in front of an audience... You can do sketches on the TikToks and Facebooks and you can have the late night shows, but there's nothing you can do to standup - you're either making people laugh or you're not."

David Kau, Comedian